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1 – 7 of 7Jari Huikku, Elaine Harris, Moataz Elmassri and Deryl Northcott
This study aims to explore how managers exercise agency in strategic investment decisions (SIDs) by drawing on their knowledgeability of the strategic context. Specifically, the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore how managers exercise agency in strategic investment decisions (SIDs) by drawing on their knowledgeability of the strategic context. Specifically, the authors address the role of position–practice relations and irresistible causal forces in this conduct.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors examine SID-making (SIDM) practices in four case organisations operating in highly competitive markets, conducting interviews with managers at various levels and analysing company documents. Drawing on strong structuration theory, the authors show how managerial decision makers draw upon their knowledge of organisational context when exercising agency in SIDs.
Findings
The authors provide insights into how SIDM behaviour, specifically agents’ conduct, is shaped by a combination of position–practice relations and the agents’ comprehension of their organisation’s context.
Research limitations/implications
The authors extend the SIDM literature by surfacing the issue of how actors’ conjuncturally-specific knowledge of external structures shapes the general dispositions they draw on in exercising agency in practice.
Originality/value
The authors extend the SIDM literature by surfacing the issue of how actors’ conjuncturally-specific knowledge of external structures shapes the general dispositions they draw on in exercising agency in practice. Particularly, the authors contribute to this literature by identifying irresistible causal forces and illuminating why actors might not resist in SIDM processes, despite having the potential to do so.
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Elaine Pamela Harris, Deryl Northcott, Moataz Moamen Elmassri and Jari Huikku
In the field of strategic investment decision making (SIDM) a body of research has grown up via international case studies and organisation-based fieldwork. However, there has…
Abstract
Purpose
In the field of strategic investment decision making (SIDM) a body of research has grown up via international case studies and organisation-based fieldwork. However, there has been little systematic theorisation around SIDM processes and practices. The purpose of this paper is to show how strong structuration theory (SST) can be employed to guide how future SIDM studies are conducted and theorised.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors draw upon the concepts from SST to reanalyse prior empirically based work. The authors apply SST-informed analysis to four SIDM case studies selected from the total of 18 published over the period 1970-2016 to explore the utility of SST compared with other approaches.
Findings
The analysis highlights the role of agents’ knowledgeability and position-practice relations in SIDM, which has largely been neglected by prior studies. The authors demonstrate the potential of SST to inform meso-level theorising by applying it to four published case studies. Whilst the authors argue for the adoption of SST, the authors also identify key methodological and conceptual issues in using SST in SIDM research.
Research limitations/implications
The examples and recommendations could assist management accounting researchers, particularly those engaged in case studies and organisational fieldwork, to build knowledge via the improved comparison, integration and theorisation of cases undertaken by different researchers in different contexts.
Originality/value
The authors offer a bridge between SST concepts and case study evidence for theorising, carrying out and analysing case study and field research on SIDM.
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Jari Huikku, Timo Hyvönen and Janne Järvinen
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the initiation of accounting information system projects. Specifically, it examines the role of the predictive analytics (PA) project…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the initiation of accounting information system projects. Specifically, it examines the role of the predictive analytics (PA) project initiator in the integration of financial and operational sales forecasts.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses a field study method to address the studied phenomenon in eight Finnish companies that have recently adopted PA systems. The data are primarily based on 19 interviews in the companies and five interviews with the PA consultants.
Findings
The authors found that initiators appear to play a major role regarding the degree of integration of financial and operational sales forecasts. The initiators from an accounting function have a tendency to pay more attention to the integration than the representatives from other functions, such as operations and sales.
Practical implications
The study also makes a practical contribution to companies in showing and discussing the important role of the accounting department as an initiator of a project if the target is to achieve a tight coupling of financial and operational forecast figures, i.e., “one set of numbers”.
Originality/value
Even though companies have increasingly adopted PA systems in recent years, we still know little about how the initiation affects the design of accounting information systems overall. The central contribution of the paper, therefore, is to show that if a PA project is initiated by the accounting department, data integration becomes more likely. It contributes also to the discussion related to the appropriateness of data integration in the context of forecasting.
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Several scholars have recently highlighted the narrowness of accounting research regarding it as a threat to scholarly developments in the field. The aim of this study was to…
Abstract
Purpose
Several scholars have recently highlighted the narrowness of accounting research regarding it as a threat to scholarly developments in the field. The aim of this study was to chart progress in management accounting research using a sample of doctoral dissertations published in Finland. In particular, the study examines the range and diversity of research strategic choices in Finnish dissertations over time, including the topics and methodological and theoretical approaches chosen. The authors also briefly compare findings over time and with other progress studies.
Design/methodology/approach
A longitudinal historical investigation was selected. All of the 80 management accounting doctoral dissertations published in Finnish business schools and departments during 1945-2015 were analysed.
Findings
The findings reveal that an expansion of doctoral education has led to an increasing diversity of research strategic choices in Finland. Different issues have been of interest at different times; so, it has been possible to cover a wide range of cost, management accounting and other topics and to use different methodological and theoretical approaches over time. Consequently, management accounting has become a rich and multifaceted field of scientific research.
Research limitations/implications
While this analysis is limited to doctoral research in Finland, the results should be relevant in advancing the understanding of the development of management accounting research.
Practical implications
Overall, the findings support the view that there have been, and continue to be, many ways to conduct innovative research in the field of management accounting.
Social implications
Dissertation research in this field has been extensive and vital enough to educate new generations of academics, guarantee continuity of the subject as an academic discipline and make management accounting a significant academic field of research.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to current research on management accounting change by an analysis of a sample of doctoral dissertations.
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Ahmed Othman Rashwan Kholeif and Lisa Jack
This paper aims to use Stones’ strong structuration theory (SST) that combines Giddens’ duality and Archer’s analytical dualism to deal with the paradox of embedded agency…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to use Stones’ strong structuration theory (SST) that combines Giddens’ duality and Archer’s analytical dualism to deal with the paradox of embedded agency, focussing on resistance, in the budgeting literature. It also applies this framework to an illustrative case study that examines a failed attempt to implement performance-based budgeting (PBB) in the Egyptian Sales Tax Department (ESTD).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors have used SST as an analytical framework. Longitudinal case study data were collected from interviews, observations, discussions and documentary analysis and from publicly available reports and other media issued by the World Bank.
Findings
The SST framework identifies the circumstances in which middle managers as embedded agency have limited possibilities to change their dispositions to act and identify opportunities for emancipation in the wider social context in which they are embedded. The official explanation for the failure to implement PBB in Egypt was obstruction by middle managers. The findings of this study provide an alternative explanation to that published by the World Bank for the failure to institutionalise PBB in Egypt. It was found that the middle managers were the real supporters of PBB. Other parties and existing laws and regulations contributed to the failure of PBB.
Research limitations/implications
As a practical implication of the study, the analysis presented here offers an alternative interpretation of the failure of the Egyptian project for monitoring and evaluation to that published by the World Bank. This case and similar cases may enhance the understanding of how and when monitoring and evaluation technologies should be introduced at the global level to manage conflicts of interest between agencies and beneficiaries.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the extant management accounting literature on the use of ST in addressing the paradox of embedded agency in making or resisting structural change. It uses SST to integrate Giddens’ ST with critical realist theory, incorporating duality and dualism in a stronger model of structuration. The SST framework offers a means of analysing case studies that result from interactions and conjunctures between different groups of actors at different ontological levels. The paper also examines the issue of embedded agency in budgeting research using an illustrative case study from a developing country, Egypt.
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Alan Coad, Lisa Jack and Ahmed Kholeif
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the interdisciplinary use of strong structuration theory and consider the impact of this for accounting research. The paper also provides…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the interdisciplinary use of strong structuration theory and consider the impact of this for accounting research. The paper also provides an overview of the contributions advanced by the other papers in this special issue of Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal (AAAJ).
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws together and identifies key issues and themes related to the rapidly evolving interdisciplinary use of strong structuration theory and considers the relevance of these issues to accounting research.
Findings
The paper highlights that there is a growing use of strong structuration theory in a number of disciplines, such as in healthcare, learning studies, management, migration studies and childcare as well as in accounting. Within the accounting discipline, whilst the interest began in management accounting and control, there are ongoing studies of the not-for-profit sector, social and environmental accounting, financial reporting standards and audit. Using strong structuration theory, researchers are more interested in the people (individually or collectively) and their analysis of their conduct and context. They are moving forwards from an overly static use of the quadripartite framework to a more dynamic approach that also includes the other important central elements of strong structuration that focus on the issue of agency in situ rather than on structure cut off from agency.
Research limitations/implications
The paper provides important insights into emerging issues and developments in strong structuration theory that have clear relevance to accounting research and practice as well as other disciplines.
Originality/value
This paper, and other contributions to this special issue of AAAJ, provide a basis and a research agenda for accounting scholars seeking to undertake empirical research using Stones’ strong structuration theory.
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